The ministry of culture made three changes in the membership of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society by removing members who were not happy with the way the society was being handled by the government.
Professor Udayan Mishra, Dr. BP Singh and economist Nitin Desai were removed from the roster. Their memberships were reconstituted with BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, ex-foreign secretary S. Jaishankar and Ram Bahadur Rai taking over the responsibility. A fourth change to the membership was necessitated following the resignation of academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta — news anchor Arnab Goswami replaced him.
According to the circular issued by the ministry of culture, the term of these new appointees will be “up to 26th April, 2020 or until further orders whichever is earlier.”
The divide between Desai and Singh, and the government grew on the subject of the proposed ‘Museum for Prime Ministers which is to be built in the same premises as the NMML, the Teen Murti Bhavan. On the subject of a museum for the PMs, Singh had previously said, “If there is a PMs Museum, there may be a demand in every state to have CMs Museums as they are the leaders of the States.”
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Earlier, on October 15, the founding stone of the museum was laid by Mahesh Sharma, the culture minister and Hardeep Singh Puri, the minister of state for housing and urban affairs.
Commenting on the new appointments, Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh who is also a member of the NMML by way of being nominated by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF) observed, “The people who have been replaced were men of integrity and scholarship.”
The autonomous NMML was established in 1964 and is under the purview of the ministry of culture. The NMML society was established in 1966 and is in-charge of decision-making of the administration of the memorial.